My favorite quote, and my defining business perspective, comes from legendary musician Duke Ellington: “A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”I firmly believe you must understand the problem in its entirety to have any chance of developing an effective solution. That makes me passionate about change, above and beyond the job at hand. I have always sought opportunities to improve things; to dig deep, discover, correct, and devise best processes; to troubleshoot on both the organizational and the system levels; and to move the company’s total capacity forward.To that last point, I strive to live by the timeless words of author Tom Peters: “Great leaders do not create followers, they create more leaders.” You cannot grow a company’s capacity by simply dumping a task burden onto your subordinates. To create more leaders, I get involved. I don’t just add to the workload, I take part in it. I welcome the challenge, and live for seeing the after-effects.Which leads me to my own motto: “Making clean progress takes dirtying your hands.”